


Taking the D out of Destiny

by Elemental



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Important Conversations, Post episode 19
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-21 16:13:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17046800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elemental/pseuds/Elemental
Summary: It was easier to hide Minerva when he was a kid.When you're a teenager in the middle of nowhere, talking to yourself could be passed off as a whole bunch of things: no one really cared about what you were doing so long as you weren't getting into trouble.These days it's harder to hide talking to himself. Maybe it means it's time to talk to Ned and Aubrey instead.





	Taking the D out of Destiny

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lanerose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lanerose/gifts).



> This is canon compliant as of Episode 19, but who knows what will get retconned as we go.
> 
> For Lanerose: may your holiday be filled with cheer.  
> With thanks to Karios and Betweenthebliss for the beta!

Duck’s pretty sure he ought to be better about Minerva popping in on him by now. Duck’s _also_ pretty sure she gets a kick out it every time he jumps out of his skin: not that she ever laughs or anything like that, it’s just the look in her glowing eyes. Or maybe not: maybe it’s all in his head. He’d thought she was just a thing he’d made up for a while there, so it isn’t like he’d put it past himself to read too much into her expression.

The point is, he’s in the lodge cellar on his own time, minding his own business, giving Beacon a polish. It feels weird to do, but since he was the one who’d gone and gotten Beacon banged up in the first place, it’s really only fair. He nearly cuts his own hand off when Minerva pops into existence and she booms like one of those born-again types who come around in groups and take over the ski lodge:

“Good news, Duck Newton!”

“Jesus H. Christ, Minerva, we’ve _talked_ about this!” Duck shakes out the polishing cloth, which falls into two neat pieces when it had been _one_ just moments before. “We have a _schedule_ for a _reason_.”

“I understand your recalcitrance, Duck Newton, but this is a matter that could not wait! I have spoken to my-” she stops, and the glow around her actually stutters for the briefest moment, so short that Duck wonders if he just blinked wrong. While he wonders about that she moves in close and her hands come to rest on her hips. “What has happened to your chosen weapon, Duck Newton?”

Duck looks at Beacon and his crumpled edge. “Well, we got in a fight, Minerva.” He doesn’t want to be upset about it, but he is. Now that the metaphorical snow has cleared, Duck’s had time to think about the last abomination and he’s really not too happy about it.

“Indeed, Minerva,” Beacon’s drawl is the same as it has ever been, sarcasm so thick you could cut it from the air and fry it for dinner. “It was a great battle, in which Duck Newton fought many foes and proceeded to vanquish exactly _none_ of them. In the heat of the moment, when Duck could have put me to my great purpose, he faltered.”

“I did _not_ ,” Duck glares at Beacon, offended. “I didn’t want to fight, but I wasn’t going to let them hurt Indrid -”

“Do you have a new companion -”

Beacon cuts Minerva off before she can continue. “He used me to cut the _chains_ from another.”

Minerva’s surprised, or at least as surprised as a six-foot glowing blue figure can be, Duck figures, and she turns her attention fully to him. “You broke the chains of bondage, Duck Newton? Your chosen weapon is a power unto itself! It should not be damaged by the materials of your world, Duck Newton, it should cut through to the very heart of -”

Minerva blinks out of existence, just like every other time. Probably out of time again: Duck doesn’t exactly keep a stopwatch for her visits, but he’s pretty sure she’s gotten worse about remembering that there _is_ a limit to these little weird _tete-a-tetes_ or whatever.

Duck’s wondering about what she’d intended to tell him in the first place and what she meant about Beacon not getting damaged when, well, he clearly _was_ \- when Duck turns to pick up his polishing cloth and Beacon - and nearly loses a finger or two again because Ned and Aubrey are both standing and staring at him at the bottom of the cellar stairs.

“Shit! Hi - hey. Hey, you two.” Duck just puts Beacon down. He’s not exactly winning the swordsman of the year award here. “Uh, hey. What’re you doing here?”

Ned looks at Aubrey and Aubrey looks at Duck and uses her ‘talking to idiots’ voice. “Mama asked us all to meet her here, remember?”

Fuck. Duck doesn’t know how long they’ve been there or how much they’ve heard. Duck tries, and fails, to wince his way through a believable lie. “Right! Right, I uh - I forgot. I was… practicing…for a… for Ned’s next show - fuck - for the play - the next play.”

“Oh I liked the show one, that’s a lie I could use,” Ned grins and comes into the space properly, looking around. “Are you being punked? Can Beacon _be_ punked?”

“I don’t think this is a punked situation, Ned.” Aubrey follows and Duck watches as she fidgets with one of the buttons on her jean vest. “Duck, who were you and Beacon talking to?”

“Is it a ghost?” Ned glares at Thacker, who’s just sitting silently and watching them through the net, more statue than person, then goes on to check the corners of the space. “Are you haunted? You never told me that thing was haunted.”  
  
“It’s not haunted.” They have one of those instant coffee pod machines down here and Duck decides to make himself a cup. They have to use the water cooler next to it to fill it up, since Thacker has the kitchen roped off, but it does the trick. “And I’m not haunted either,” he adds because he can hear Aubrey whispering something to Ned behind his back.

He has to tell them. They’ve been working together for months now and things are only getting more deadly, not less. It’s part of why he’d come down early for the meeting - he just needed a space to think about shit because, well. There’s a lot to think about. Like how the last abomination killed Rick, and very nearly killed a lot more people. Like how many people got hurt this time. Like how they only realized there was a problem after Rick was already stone cold dead.

Duck doesn’t like what that implies, to him. If everything is getting _worse_ , it doesn’t matter how much better the Pine Guard is getting, not really. Not if they’re always _re_ acting, right?

“If you’re not haunted,” Aubrey comes up beside Duck and digs a hot chocolate pod out of the assorted box. “What’s going on?”

The coffee machine sputters out the last of the brew and Duck digs out the creamer and sugar from the little minibar fridge next to it. It takes a bit to find the words to explain, as he listens to Aubrey fuss with the machine - they don’t _know_ Minerva but they’ve heard him mention her, mention that she’d given him the sword. They’ve been - they’ve been _good_ people, really. They each have their secrets and none of them have really decided to dig at _history_ and that’s been good for the whole Pine Guard thing but this might just be… well. It might be important. It’s starting to feel more and more like it _is_ important.

Aubrey, bless her, just listens as he explains about who - well, his best guess at who - Minerva is. She shushes Ned every time he opens his mouth to crack a joke and the three of them end up sitting in a half circle of well-worn lodge chairs while Duck tries to describe just how fucking terrifying it was to be handed visions, and a sword, and a _destiny_.

He doesn’t do so great a job of it: by the time he’s run out of coffee and things to say, Aubrey is leaning forward, her elbows on her knees and eyes bright behind her tinted lenses. “I can’t believe you ran away from your future, Duck.”

Duck scoffs. “What future? I had a ghost woman who just shouted at me about destiny at awkward times and made me think I was going crazy, a sword that was so bloodthirsty it seriously creeped me out, and some weird visions of everything going to hell.” Duck could admit that sure, parts of it _had_ been cool, but the good never really lasted and the bad was… well. “I dunno, maybe you’d have gone off and like, Buffy the Vampire slayed it or something, but I wanted to be normal. I didn’t want to kill people or die for some weird cause. It's one thing to want to protect people, or to protect the forest, but this?" He pushes up out of the chair and takes his mug to the bathroom sink to rinse it out for next time. 

“Mama didn't include it on the pamphlet?” Ned quips, and Duck isn't sure if he's being genuine or sarcastic. Knowing Ned, probably both.

“There was a whole lot of 'Don't worry you can handle this' and 'it's dangerous but if you work together you'll be fine don't sell yourselves short', but I remember her being real thin on 'lets kill everything that we don't like' part. And that's just it! I don’t want to kill people - or these abominations - or get killed by them!” Duck turns to glare at Aubrey and Ned for a moment, but they don’t seem to get it. “This is _serious_ , you know? This isn’t just playing with fire and _jokes_. D’you remember the _sinkhole_ that nearly took out the hospital? Or how the last thing _killed Rick_? Because I do, and _fuck_.” Duck paces the space a few steps - there really isn’t a lot of space for movement. “I’ve been thinking, ok? About a lot of things, but - but about all of this. There’s a _reason_ I wasn’t going along with Minerva’s ‘grand plan’ and put my feet as far from her as I could.”

Aubrey looks stricken. Duck feels a bit bad, he doesn’t usually yell at people but she’s just a kid in so many ways. Does she even know what she’s signing up for? Because he sure as hell doesn’t.

“Do… do you want to stop being in the Pine Guard?” she asks, voice uncertain. She’s fiddling with her jacket again, which is a better nervous tic than her actual playing with fire one. “I thought you were all about protecting Kepler…”

“I thought Mama made it clear that these things were going to keep happening,” Ned’s expression is the sort of cheerful careful he puts on when he wants an easy escape. “Not that I’m happy about the idea of things getting more dangerous. Insurance is giving me _hell_ about the Lincoln, you know.”

“But we saved Mark!” Aubrey looks between them. “That was worth it, wasn’t it?”

Duck comes back to the chairs and sits down heavily. “Yeah, yeah Aubrey, it was worth it - but that sort of thing is what I’m talking about. We got lucky. How long can we _be_ lucky?” Duck runs a hand through his hair and tugs on the ends and tries to put shit into words. It’s never been his forte. “Remember when Mama blew up at us about Billy? She’s got all this…” Duck looks over to the stairwell, but they’re still alone. He looks over to Thacker who’s staring into the distance. Right. It’s just them, so… “She’s got all this history and all this - all these reasons to be angry about the abominations. I get that, I do, but when I signed up here, I signed up to protect Kepler. I didn’t sign up for someone else’s _war_ .  And her going off like that - it’s just like Minerva. They’ve already decided the best way to handle this. I’m _not_ okay with that.”

Duck had been chilled to the bone at the way Mama had been well and fully planning on killing Billy when she hadn’t even _met_ him - how she didn’t even want to consider he might be different. He wasn’t going to stand for that - not on his watch, anyway.

“The point is, I’m not going to follow orders blind, not from Mama and not from Minerva. And if they’re going to have a problem with that, I have _no problem_ with leaving all of this for them to deal with. I did it before, and I can do it again.”

The room is quiet for a while and Duck ends up ready to apologize for the whole stupid thing, when Aubrey breaks the silence instead. “You’ve really been thinking about all this, huh?”

Duck chuckles. “That obvious, huh?”

“I think this is the most you’ve ever said in a conversation about stuff like, ever.” Aubrey elbows him and musters up a weak smile. “It’s good. Maybe we should be thinking about this stuff.”

“I sure as heck haven’t been,” Ned stretches in his chair. “But you’ve got a point, Duck. Question is: what do we do about it? Mama didn’t take too kindly to us questioning her before, and I’ve noticed she’s an expert at the guilt trip.”

“Guys, she’s not _crazy_. We just need to talk to her.” Aubrey smoothes her palms across her jeans. “We need to talk about what we’re going to do next anyway, right? So, we talk to her. Like adults. She’ll listen.” Aubrey nods - certain of that fact. “She will.”

“Right,” Ned slaps his thigh. “And if your Minertia gives you problems, you just tell us when she’s around and we’ll give her a piece of our minds.”

The statement actually drags a smile from Duck. “It’s Minerva, Ned, and you can’t see or hear her, which is how we even got started on this thing.”

“Exactly!” Ned _grins_ , his voice conspiratorial. “It’s perfect. We can give her what for and she can’t say a thing to us! And now Aubrey and I don’t have to worry about you going crazy from that last hit to the head you took.”

“Ned!”

“What?” He shrugs. “It looked like a doozy and then we come down and hear you and your sword talking to the ceiling, what else were we going to think?”

“Ned!” Aubrey kicks him. “You’re not helping!”

Duck puts his head in his hands and just laughs. It’s funny, sure, but the laughter is as much about a _release_ as anything else. He laughs and laughs because at least if he’s going crazy, he’s not going alone.

Aubrey pats his shoulder awkwardly. Ned makes him another cup of coffee.

It sure as hell isn’t where Duck thought he’d end up when he’d turned away from Minerva and ran as far away from capital-D Destiny as he could, but…he might just be all right.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
